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Over the next two days in a series of separate posts, RTC will break down all 32 of the first round games using our best analytical efforts to understand these teams, the matchups and their individual strengths and weaknesses. Our hope is that you’ll let us know in the comments where you agree, disagree or otherwise think we’ve lost our collective minds. Here are the Thursday afternoon games.

Thursday, March 18 (all times ET)

12:20 pm – #7 BYU vs. #10 Florida (Oklahoma City pod)

The NCAA Tournament kicks off in style this year with a good first round game from Oklahoma City. BYU enters the postseason riding the wave of one of its most successful regular seasons in decades, but it won’t matter much if the Cougars can’t slay their old bugaboo of winning a first round game on Thursday afternoon. The last time BYU won an NCAA opener in 1993, Grant Hill’s high fade was in style and the internet was something employees wore in their hair at fast food joints. Eight trips later, BYU has by far its best team and chance to end that losing streak. Jimmer Fredette is the best player casual fans haven’t yet heard of, but his 21/3/5 assts per game and 45% three-point shooting allow for the occasional explosion, as in the cases where he dropped 49 points at Arizona or 45 against TCU just last week in the Mountain West Tournament. The Cougs’ opponent, Florida, limped into the postseason, having lost four of five games and is a questionable entrant (especially as a #10 seed). But the Gators are still dangerous, boasting five players who average double figures with an ability to go off at any time. The most difficult problem Florida will face, though, is how to stop the highly efficient offense that BYU brings to the dusty plains. Dave Rose’s team shoots well from everywhere on the floor, and the Gator defense has been appropriately described as soft throughout the season, so UF will have to get into a high-scoring shootout to have a chance to outscore the Cougars in this one.

The Skinny: it’ll be difficult for Florida’s defense to slow the offensive talents of Fredette and his Cougars so we’re going with BYU by ten in a shootout.

12:25 pm – #6 Notre Dame vs. #11 Old Dominion (New Orleans pod)

Everybody knows about the Irish and their response to what was believed to be a potential season-ending injury to their superstar Luke Harangody. After the injury (and during Harangody’s return), the Irish have rebuilt themselves into a better team. We’re not saying they are a better team without Harangody because that would be ridiculous, but the brand of basketball they play when they don’t dump it down to him and watch him go to work is producing better results. They will have their hands full with the CAA champion (both regular season and tournament) Old Dominion. While the Monarchs ended up losing many of the “resume-building” games they played this year, they were competitive in most of them (5-point loss versus Missouri and 9-point loss atNorthern Iowa) they also managed to win the biggest game on their schedule at #3-seeded Georgetown. So we know they can hang with a Big East team. Now the question is whether senior Gerald Lee can put it together to lead Blaine Taylor’s squad to an upset in the first game of the NCAA Tournament. It says here that they can, but the Irish are playing so well that they won’t.

The Skinny: Notre Dame gets enough production from each of its key scorers and is able to clamp down late on Lee and company to eke out a six-point victory.

This is the fourth of our four quick-and-dirty region breakdowns. This will serve to help the quick triggers who like to fill out their brackets first thing on Monday morning. For the rest of you, we’ll be providing more detailed game-by-game analysis throughout the rest of the week.

Edward Jones Dome Hosts the Midwest Regional

Region: Midwest

Favorite: Kansas, #1-seed, 32-2. The overall #1 seed. The experts say there are no dominant teams this year, but for our money this year’s Jayhawks are just as dominant as North Carolina was in 2008-09. Top-flight weapons at every position. A solid bench. Excellent coaching. Youth. Experience. Any way you prefer to be beaten, they’ll beat you. That switch they flipped to put Texas A&M away in the Big 12 Tournament was scary, but that’s the sort of command of which they’re capable.

Should They Falter: Ohio State, #2-seed, 27-7. We all know how special Evan Turner is. But teams seem to make the mistake of thinking that this team has no other weapons. David Lighty, Jon Diebler, and William Buford are all capable of big games. They defer to Turner, yet Turner enjoys sharing the wealth. As a team, they almost never take a bad shot, a trait that will serve them well even more this time of year.

Grossly Overseeded: Northern Iowa, #9-seed, 28-4. Northern Iowa’s only win in the NCAA was 20 years ago. I know that has nothing to do with now, but the last four times they’ve been to the Tournament, they’ve been a popular upset pick and have always come up short. To be honest, based on their body of work, they’re probably seeded where they should be, it’s just that there are a few teams seeded lower than them that are playing a little better brand of basketball right now. If UNI can give us some results in the Tournament, then we’ll be happy to put some chips on their square in the future.

Grossly Underseeded: Michigan State, #5-seed, 24-8.At this point, we should all be used to Tom Izzo overachieving in the NCAA Tournament. This team went 14-4 in the extremely tough Big Ten. After that stretch in which they dropped three straight (at Wisconsin, at Illinois, and Purdue), everyone forgot about them. Then they won five of six to end the year before the conference tournament, the only loss coming against surging Ohio State. Don’t ever sell the Spartans short in the Big Dance.

Sweet Sixteen Sleeper: Houston, #13-seed, 19-15. Aubrey Coleman is the nation’s leading scorer at 25.0 PPG, and it looks like he and Kelvin Lewis have finally started to put it together. Honestly, we thought we’d see more out of the Cougars this year. They’ll be a tougher out for Maryland than everyone thinks. Houston is second in the nation in turnovers per game (8.8), and 12th in turnovers forced (16.8), nice numbers when you have a pair of guards who can scoop up those turnovers and score quickly.

Final Four Sleeper: #5 Michigan State. They can own a game through their work on the boards.

This is the third of our four quick-and-dirty region breakdowns. This will serve to help the quick triggers who like to fill out their brackets first thing on Monday morning. For the rest of you, we’ll be providing more detailed game-by-game analysis throughout the rest of the week.

Energy Solutions Arena Hosts the West Regional

Region: West

Favorite: Syracuse, #1 seed, 29-4. Jim Boeheim’s Syracuse Orange is the favorite in this region by a good margin. His team has lost their last two games and there are whispers that center Arinze Onuaku may not be available for the first two rounds, but SU is talented enough to survive the first weekend without him (as a comparison, UNC didn’t have Ty Lawson at full strength for the first weekend last year). K-State is realistically the only team in this region capable of standing toe-to-toe with Syracuse in terms of relative talent, but they play too loosey-goosey to actually beat the Orange.

Should They Falter: Kansas State, #2 seed, 26-7. Should Syracuse get upset, K-State is in position to take advantage. With a dynamite backcourt of Denis Clemente and Jacob Pullen capable of going off in bunches, the Wildcats could make a run to their first Final Four since the mid-60s. The quality of talent in this region just isn’t very deep, so outside of Syracuse or K-State, who else could realistically win the requisite four games?

Grossly Overseeded: Vanderbilt, #4 seed, 24-8. A team that lost to Western Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina and Mississippi State, none of whom are Tourney teams, should not have gotten a protected seed with only a couple of marquee wins this year.

Grossly Underseeded:UTEP, #12 seed, 26-6. The Miners really didn’t start rolling until they integrated Derrick Caracter into the lineup, but they’ve been fantastic since then. At worst, this team should have been in the #8-#10 range. Instead, they’ll get an opportunity to prove themselves against the annual public darling #5 Butler, where Vegas has UTEP as only a 2.5-point underdog.

Sweet Sixteen Sleeper (#12 seed or lower): UTEP. For the same reasons as above, once UTEP beats Butler, they will also be able to get past #4 Vanderbilt who is probably overseeded, or #13 Murray State, a team they’re simply better than.

Final Four Sleeper (#4 seed or lower): BYU, #7 seed, 29-5. This is an easy one. Everyone knows that BYU is murder to play at home, and if the Cougars can get past their first two opponents (Florida and K-State), then they will have as partisan a home crowd as possible in Salt Lake City to play two eastern teams, either Pitt or Xavier and Syracuse. The problem for BYU will be getting there. They’ve had NCAA first round problems for the better part of two decades, and even though they’re much better than their initial opponent Florida, they’ll need to play really well to beat Kansas State.

This is the second of our four quick-and-dirty region breakdowns. This will serve to help the quick triggers who like to fill out their brackets first thing on Monday morning. For the rest of you, we’ll be providing more detailed game-by-game analysis throughout the rest of the week.

Carrier Dome Hosts the East Regional

Region:East

Favorite: Kentucky, #1 seed, 32-2. No surprise here, as UK is considered one of the top two national title favorites along with Kansas. The Cats have one of the most talented starting lineups in the country, but have made a living this year sneaking past teams in the last few minutes. The team that thinks they can beat Kentucky will have to find a way to deal with a strong inside tandem of DeMarcus Cousins and Patrick Patterson in addition to the playmaking abilities of John Wall. Can anyone in this region bring that kind of defense?

Should They Falter: West Virginia, #2 seed, 27-6. WVU comes into the NCAA Tournament with momentum, having won six in a row against top-drawer competition in the Big East. They rebound with almost as much ferocity as the Cats, while coming in much more battle-tested in terms of schedule. As an added bonus, they may have the most dynamic player in the bracket with Da’Sean Butler whom no less an authority than Evan Turner predicted would hit the game-winning shot in the Big East Tournament final.

Grossly Overseeded: Marquette, #6 seed, 22-11. The Golden Eagles have won seemingly every close game they’ve played this year, but they’re probably not as good as you’d expect an 11-7 Big East team to be. They were 2-6 against the RPI top 25, and most simulations (including Vegas) we’ve seen so far have MU as a relative tossup against #11 Washington in the first round.

Grossly Underseeded: Temple, #5 seed, 29-5. Temple should have been a protected seed. The Owls were 6-3 against the RPI top 50 and their defense is stickier then day-old sweat. In a very competitive A10 this year, they outlasted several other NCAA-quality teams to win the regular season title and won the conference tournament as well.

Sweet Sixteen Sleeper(#12 seed or lower): Cornell, #12 seed, 27-4. Jay Bilas’ nuttiness aside, Cornell is an excellent team that could grind it out with #5 Temple and #4 Wisconsin long enough to steal a couple of wins here. The Big Red arguably have more offensive options at the end of the game than either of those two higher-seeded teams. The trick will be to ensure that the game is close in the last five minutes.

Final Four Sleeper(#4 seed or lower): Wisconsin, #4 seed, 23-8. Should Cornell not make a run, Wisconsin might be the team to get past Kentucky and Villanova to crash the Final Four. With Jon Leuer back in the fold healthy, the Badgers have the inside/outside play along with Trevon Hughes to go along with their typically unbending defense to push the two sets of Wildcats to the brink.

This is the first of our four quick-and-dirty region breakdowns. This will serve to help the quick triggers who like to fill out their brackets first thing on Monday morning. For the rest of you, we’ll be providing more detailed game-by-game analysis throughout the rest of the week.

Reliant Stadium Hosts the South Regional

Region: South

Favorite: Duke, #1 seed, 29-5. Yeah, I know it isn’t shocking that they are the favorites especially in what many are calling the weakest of the four regions, but the Blue Devils have a solid combination of perimeter talent (albeit limited in numbers) and interior players (quantity more than quality, but still something). With the way Jon Scheyer has been playing this season and the sudden re-emergence of Kyle Singler in the ACC Tournament, Coach K and the Blue Devils should have their sights set on Indianapolis.

Should They Falter: Villanova, #2 seed, 24-7. A Final Four team last year, the Wildcats had the appearance of a Final Four team a month ago (many will still pick them now), but after losing five of their last seven games to close the season some of that luster has worn off. Still we would be remiss not to list them here as all but one of those losses came on the road (neutral site in one case to a #6 seed) against a team that is in the NCAA, another team with a top-3 seed and another to a UConn team back when Jim Calhoun’s players still cared.

Grossly Overseeded: California, #8 seed, 23-10. I know they won the Pac-10 regular season, but as you may have heard the Pac-10 was awful this year. When we asked Mike Montgomery about the possibility that the Bears might miss the NCAA Tournament this year he was perturbed. While he might have made it into the NCAA Tournament it does not erase the fact that they did not beat a single team in the top 50 of the RPI ratings. The Bears might deserve a spot in the NCAA Tournament, but I think most people would agree that they have not earned a seed this high.

Grossly Underseeded: Siena, #13 seed, 27-6. This might be where they deserve to be seeded based on their resume this year, but this is the team with the most “growth potential.” The Saints struggled in their conference final, but they have won first round games as an underdog in each of the past two years. Last year they knocked off Ohio State as a #9 seed and the year before knocked off Vanderbilt as a #13 seed. With an experienced squad they would be a tough out as a #13 seed in any bracket.

Sweet Sixteen Sleeper (#12 seed or lower): Siena. Like we said they won their first round games each of the past two years and there might not be a team more set-up to be upset in the first round than the Robbie Hummel-less PurdueBoilermakers. If they get past Matt Painter’s crew, they will play the winner of the Texas A&M and Utah State. It won’t be an easy second round game, but since it is in Spokane, Washington, we can’t imagine that either team will have a huge following there (although Utah State could conceivably travel up there).

Here we go… the brackets are out and we’ve had a little while to ferment, soak up, contemplate, and deliberate the beautiful symmetrical configuration of lines, letters and numbers that makes our hearts skip a few extra beats each spring. We’ll be analyzing the heck out of this thing all week long, but for now, here are some immediate post-reveal thoughts.

No problem with Duke as a #1 seed over Ohio State and West Virginia, but what we can’t understand is how the Devils drew #2 Villanova in their region, while overall #1 Kansas drew Big Ten regular season and tournament champion #2 Ohio State in theirs. With Evan Turner out of the lineup, OSU lost three games; so what we’re looking at is a Buckeye team that would have likely been a #1 themselves without his injury. Meanwhile, Villanova limps into the Tournament having lost five of their last seven games.

To that end, the Midwest Region is by far the toughest draw for a #1 seed. KU will have to face last year’s national runner-up #5 Michigan State or surging #4 Maryland in the Sweet Sixteen, and #2 Ohio State or #3 Georgetown in the Elite Eight. It wouldn’t shock us in any way if any of those other four teams made it to the Final Four. No other region is as loaded.

The next toughest region is the East Region. It doesn’t have the quality of depth that the Midwest has, but it has several dangerous teams that could give #1 Kentucky a lot of problems at each step of the way. #8 Texas in the second round has the talent; can they play together? #4 Wisconsin and #5 Temple are teams that play a style that doesn’t lend itself well to freshman mistakes. And certainly #2 West Virginia is capable of a run, although we have issues with Bob Huggins’ history as a successful tournament coach (as in, he isn’t).

The most wide-open region is the South Region. Does anyone believe in #1 Duke for the Final Four? #2 Villanova, #3 Baylor and #5 Texas A&M are all interesting in this region. It seems like any of those four teams could put together a run here. We omit #4 Purdue because we just can’t get behind this team without Robbie Hummel.

As we move through the next few days when automatic bids will be handed out on a regular basis, we’re going to break down the teams for you so that you can start thinking about your bracket ahead of time. The pearls of wisdom are meant to help you better understand what these teams are good at and how to make fair comparisons between them — all too often, the capsules you see have a lot of information in them, but very little of it is actually helpful. If you have additional ideas, leave them in the comments. For the good/bad matchups, we’re not necessarily saying that Team X will win; we’re simply pointing out that in an ideal situation, some of that team’s strengths will be more likely to manifest against those particular opponents — so save the emails. We’re still catching up, but these should be the teams through the early part of the week.

#5. Northern Iowa Panthers (28-4, 15-3 MVC) – automatic qualifier

NCAA Seed Range: #7-#9

Three Bruce Pearls of Wisdom:

It’s all about methodical offense and sticky defense for the Panthers. This team will not beat themselves with mistakes, so you’d better be disciplined in your approach if you hope to beat them. Sixty points is the magic number — the Panthers were 16-0 this year when reaching that score. Possession basketball is the key; a 10-point deficit in the last five minutes against UNI is nearly impossible to recover from, as they take care of the ball (only 10.5 turnovers/game) and hit free throws (75.5%).

Not many mid-majors have a legitimate seven-footer but UNI’s Jordan Eglseder is one such player. He only plays about 22 minutes per game, but he’s an effective scorer in the low post, draws a lot of fouls and is one of the best per-minute rebounders in the nation on both ends. He’s not a game-changer in the sense that he will own the paint, but he is a tough wrinkle to prepare for in the game plan.

The Panthers beat up on some bad major conference teams this year (Iowa, Iowa State, BC) in addition to knocking off some mid-major powers in Old Dominion and Siena. The one confounding loss was to DePaul in the Virgin Islands early in the year where Mac Koshwal (12/19) dominated Eglseder (2/6) inside. Don’t assume that as a trend, though, as Eglseder played well against ISU’s Craig Brackins (20/14) and Purdue’s JaJuan Johnson last season (13/5).

Good Matchups: Wake Forest, Clemson

Bad Matchups: Marquette, UNLV

#6. Old Dominion (26-8, 15-3 CAA) – automatic qualifier

NCAA Seed Range: #9-#11

Three Bruce Pearls of Wisdom:

There’s no one player you have to stop to beat ODU, but if you can slow down 6’10 center Gerald Lee, you’ll have a better chance. The versatile big man was seen in the CAA Tournament taking the ball upcourt against pressure on occasion, in addition to lending his usual 15/5 and 54% shooting from the field. He has six teammates who contribute between six and nine points per game, so keying on any one of them is precarious because the Monarchs share the wealth. They only had six occasions where a player scored 20+ points in a game this year, and five of those were Lee (Marsharee Neely was the other).

ODU is another one of those mid-majors that thrives on possession basketball. They limit your possessions by defending and rebounding among the best in the nation. They also gang-rebound on the offensive glass, giving themselves an extra chance on nearly half of their scoring opportunities. Those extra chances help to make up for what is a fairly lousy three-point (31.5%) and two-point shooting percentage (49.4%).

ODU’s signature win was at Georgetown during Snowpacalypse I in December. They did it by forcing GU point guard Chris Wright into a difficult game (2-8 FG; 4 pts) and collecting eighteen Hoya turnovers. It should be noted that if you can turn over the Monarchs, as Missouri, Northern Iowa and Dayton successfully did in the nonconference slate, they struggle scoring enough points to win.

As we move through the next eight days when automatic bids will be handed out on a regular basis, we’re going to break down the teams for you so that you can start thinking about your bracket ahead of time. The pearls of wisdom are meant to help you better understand what these teams are good at and how to make fair comparisons between them — all too often, the capsules you see have a lot of information in them, but very little of it is actually helpful. If you have additional ideas, leave them in the comments. For the good/bad matchups, we’re not necessarily saying that Team X will win; we’re simply pointing out that in an ideal situation, some of that team’s strengths will be more likely to manifest against those particular opponents — so save the emails. As of Sunday morning, there have been four auto-bids handed out. Here are those primers.

#1. Cornell Big Red (27-4, 13-1 Ivy) – automatic qualifier

NCAA Seed Range: #11-#13

Three Bruce Pearls of Wisdom:

Cornell is the nation’s top three-point shooting team, hitting 43.4% of their attempts from deep and scoring nearly 39% of their total points from outside the arc. The Big Red hit twenty in their bid-clinching game against Brown on Friday night. They have five players who have made 30+ this year; you simply cannot leave these guys open.

In their five games against BCS teams this year, Cornell was 2-3. The wins were against Alabama in Tuscaloosa and St. John’s in NYC. Digging deeper, though, we find that two of the three losses were to #1 seeds Syracuse (by 15) and Kansas (by 6). In those losses, Brandon Triche and Sherron Collins tore them up, exposing a vulnerability to athletic, scoring point guards who attack the basket.

The core trio of Jeff Foote, Ryan Wittman and Louis Dale will not get rattled — they’re all seniors playing in their third straight NCAA Tournament. They have proven they can score with anyone; the problem will be if they are matched up against a team that is equally offensive minded, as the Cornell defense has trouble getting stops.